[scrippet]
HARRY
(to Joy)
I forgot to call, earlier.
JOY
That’s okay…
HARRY
You forgot something, too.
(hint, hint)
She stares, uncomprehending.
HARRY
I don’t even get to die in a clean shirt!
And Joy finally GETS IT.
The pentagram BRIGHTENS and the HUM increases. Erickson and his Senior Tech are occupied with one of the control consoles. Joy starts hurriedly going through all her skirt pockets. [/scriippet]
[scrippet]INT. ERICKSON CLEAN ROOM — DAY
As the four ENTER. Doris, seeing Harry and Joy, hurries to them. Elizabeth moves out into the situation as if she runs it. She looks at the pentagram and nods in recognition.
ELIZABETH I
‘Tis much as my court magician drew it. But when it had served its purpose, he destroyed it, for fear what merely frightened away the dead might then be used to bind them.
(to the dead around)
Swiftly! Use what you have brought!
The dead THROW the pieces of steel they’ve brought onto the pentagram, one piece after another.
But every piece FALLS onto the pentacle WITHOUT EFFECT. The attack team, living and dead, STARE in horror.
ELIZABETH I
There must not be enough! More —
More of the dead THROW what they have. No effect!
Then SECURITY GUARDS APPEAR and GRAB Joy, Harry and Doris.
A wall of RAINBOW LIGHT springs up around the outer walls, floor to ceiling. A separate light-wall, the FORCE FIELD seen earlier, APPEARS around the pentagram. Some of the Dead run for the outer wall, but the outer force field BLAZES with power and they’re FROZEN in place. The living Erickson staff BREAK FREE.
ERICKSON
Throw everything you’ve got. It won’t work.
Erickson walks out among the Dead, accompanied by a group of armed SECURITY GUARDS.
ERICKSON
(to the Dead)
By holding the metal long enough to make it solid-permeable, you’ve also made it non-conductive. It takes a minute and forty seconds. After that, you might as well throw tomatoes.
(to one of his people)
Clean that hardware up before the effect wears off.
(to the Senior Technician, by the main power console)
Contract the outer barrier when they’re clear.[/scrippet]
(back to pp 90-95)
[scrippet]INT. ERICKSON COMPUTERS — DAY
Through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, several cabs DRIVE PAST and out of sight. Then Joy and Elizabeth WALK IN through the front door, into the lobby (past the entry to a SECURITY ROOM) and up to the RECEPTION DESK. As they talk to the guards there, Joy NOTES that one has a large set of keys sitting in front of him.
JOY
Hi, we’re from City Temps, we’re for the data manager’s office on the fourth floor.
GUY AT THE DESK
What name, please?
JOY
Erickson.
GUY AT THE DESK
I mean, who called you?
JOY
Sorry, it was just someone on the fourth floor.
GUY AT THE DESK
I’ll check for you.
JOY
Thanks. Is there a ladies’ room down here?
GUY AT THE DESK
Over there, right-hand door.
He picks up the phone as Joy and Elizabeth head that way.[/scrippet]
[scrippet]INT. COMPUTER SHOW — DAY
The sales stand. Harry looks frazzled, scribbles in a notebook: a POCKET P.A. sits nearby. Boyce stops by.
BOYCE
You okay, Harry? Looking stressed.
HARRY
Nothing worth mentioning. How’re we doing today?
BOYCE
Three hundred so far.
HARRY
Good. You see what’s his face around here this morning? Carlyle?
BOYCE
No, I think he went back up country.
HARRY
Okay. Just curious.
Boyce pats him on the shoulder and goes off.
POCKET P.A. “VOICE”
I’ve got a message for you.
HARRY
(sotto: uneasy)
Yeah. I know.
[/scrippet]
[scrippet]INT. ORMONDE HOTEL BREAKFAST ROOM — MORNING
The aftermath of breakfast. Tables are pulled together. Joy and Harry sit over cups of tea with Gunter, Lorna and Pario. Joy’s cellphone and room key lie on the table. Doris moves by in b.g., carrying breakfast things, looking distressed. Joy looks after her sympathetically.
JOY
Still no George.
GUNTER
We must assume they have him.
LORNA
This is so horrible. Think of it — our people being snatched off the streets and stuffed into the chips that go into these.
HARRY
No wonder we manage to pack so much processing power into the things. We’re stuffing whole human minds into the electronics.
PARIO
I for one do not want to spend eternity running somebody’s apps!
JOY
Or in a landfill when the rest of the hardware wears out.
HARRY
(guilty)
No landfills. The chip’s recyclable.
LORNA
But what can we do?[/scrippet]
[scrippet]EXT. LONDON STREETS — NIGHT
Chase scene. Gunter veers along like the worst kind of student driver, narrowly avoiding crashing into things and people… sometimes very narrowly.
INT. LONDON BUS — NIGHT
Gunter is scared, but also laughing, as exhilarated as a young hotshot pilot who’s been given a new and difficult plane in which he can’t possibly get killed. Sarah hangs on with an excited look on her face. Joy, though, is actively afraid for her life as Gunter just misses another car.
JOY
Oh, look out!
GUNTER
It’s all right! It handles just like a J U Eighty-eight!
JOY
No wonder we won the war.
They have a close scrape with another bus, SHOOT PAST. In a cross street, a POLICE CAR notices, swings into PURSUIT.
JOY
Oh God, we’re all going to be thrown in jail forever. Not that you care!
Another NEAR MISS in the traffic as Gunter CORNERS insanely.
JOY
Will you take it easy?! Some of us here aren’t dead yet and we like it that way!
GUNTER
(cheerful)
Chickennnn.[/scrippet]
[scrippet]INT. ERICKSON COMPUTERS — NIGHT
Gunter makes his way THROUGH THE BUILDING cautiously. Before entering a given space, he puts just enough of his FACE THROUGH A WALL to see in without being seen himself — a humorous but spooky effect. In this way he PASSES THROUGH several dark and unoccupied OFFICES: then PUTS HIS FACE THROUGH A GIRLIE CALENDAR on the wall of the downstairs security office and sees that it’s OCCUPIED. Gunter PULLS BACK quickly. NB: These through-matter passages make a tiny soft SOUND like an intake of breath, which can alert someone to them in a quiet place.
The GUARD in the office HEARS this little sound, GLANCES UP, sees nothing: goes back to his work. Note that most of the people working in this building have no knowledge of their company’s traffic in “residuals”, and so will be as frightened by ghosts as anyone normally would.
Gunter BACKS OFF and tries another way, heading toward the side of the building where the vans were entering. He passes through more OFFICES, a CLOSET full of janitorial equipment, a LADIES’ ROOM (with slight embarrassment): comes into a stairwell: listens — hears nothing in the stairwell itself, but downstairs, the sound of VOICES, faint.
Gunter goes down the stairs, then has to throw himself hastily through a wall to avoid being seen/run into by two TECHS throwing the “basement level” stairwell door open and going up the stairs.
TECH 3
Nah, it doesn’t bother me, it’s just the shapes they had when they were alive. They’re just sort of an ectoplasmic tape recording that plays itself over and over where they used to hang out. They can’t think, or feel anything.
TECH 4
I guess you’re right. It’s just the way they look, sometimes. That little girl…
TECH 3
I know…you hear them yelling, you feel bad at first. But it’s like lobsters when you drop ’em in boiling water, they can’t really feel pain as such…
Gunter’s head appears from the wall on hearing the line about the “little girl”. He looks angry. His face vanishes again.[/scrippet]
[scrippet]INT. ORMONDE HOTEL LOUNGE — NIGHT
Doris, George and Joy meet Gunter as he ENTERS.
GUNTER
I am sorry… I did not find her.
DORIS
Oh, dear!
GUNTER
But look what I did find.
He sits down, hands Joy the manual. She and the others sit with him, look at it in confusion.
JOY
(bewildered)
“Erickson Paralepsis Services Harvesting Routines Manual”?
GUNTER
It is very technical. A lot of instructions for their van drivers: no smoking around the equipment, no liquids, no ferrous materials, no all kinds of things. But look at these pages here.
GEORGE
“Sweep protocols.” “Storage strategies for large sweeps.” “Decanting residuals.”
Gunter points to the diagram which shows a ghostly, human-like shape being decanted from the portable pentagram, the “holding pattern”, into a larger pentagram, a big one set into the floor somewhere.
GUNTER
This is what I saw in the van: a small one. It pulled me to it. If it had pulled much more strongly, I would have had to go right into it. This must be a larger one, into which what the small one catches is decanted.
(a look at George)
“Residuals.” That is us.
(grim)
Human souls. We are a residue, to these people. Like coffee grounds in the bottom of the pot. They collect us together, apparently in large numbers. See, there are references here to sweeps of four, five hundred residuals.
DORIS
But whatever do they do it for?
JOY
We have to find out.[/scrippet]
[scrippet]INT. NEARBY OLD LONDON PUB — NIGHT
A quiet place, leaded-glass windows, dark wood paneling, worn plank floor, empty: “fruit machine” video-gambling console DINGING forlornly in b.g. Harry and Carlyle sit at the empty bar. Each has a half-finished pint, empty glasses of the previous round off to one side. Harry takes a drink.
HARRY
It’s really not bad for warm beer.
CARLYLE
Barbarian.
HARRY
That’s “mister” barbarian to you. You were really his tutor?
CARLYLE
Every great university has some bloom of ancient students about it, degreed and undegree’d people who can’t bear to leave, but stay on to learn, and damn the sheepskin. I was one. Like many others of my kind, I took on younger students of other schools for pay and coached them for exams.
HARRY
And you coached Erickson.
CARLYLE
(mild)
I wish I’d slammed the door in his earnest spotty face the first day I saw him. He was no mathematician, though before God I tried to make him one. A gift for engineering he did have. But none at all for languages.
(grim beat)
And therein lay my downfall.[/scrippet]
[scrippet]INT. RESTAURANT — EVENING
A nice restaurant. Joy and Harry are in the middle of the meal. An empty bottle of wine is taken away and a new one is brought. Both of them seem edgy.
HARRY
And on top of it all, you forgot to leave the key at the hotel again. I couldn’t get a clean shirt.
Joy starts going through her “secret pockets” with much VELCRO-RIPPING, hunting for the key in an abstracted way.
JOY
Oh, honey, I’m sorry. It’s just been — a weird day, that’s all.
HARRY
At least I was able to thank George. That was one heck of a tip he gave me.
JOY
Was it?
HARRY
It won me six hundred quid. I wish I’d bet more.
JOY
Oh, honey, that’s terrific! See what I mean about it being such a nice place.
(ready to tell him)
Harry — there’s something unusual about the people there.[/scrippet]
[scrippet]EXT. PICCADILLY — DAY
Joy and Gunter have finished lunch. They EXIT the cafe, walking down Piccadilly toward the Circus.
GUNTER
No, we don’t have to eat or drink. But it does make us feel more… alive? So most of us do.
JOY
It’s just — I don’t get it. Why are you here, when other dead people aren’t?
GUNTER
I don’t know. Any more than George does, or Sarah.
They pause near the Circus. Gunter looks across the street at what is now a Burger King.
GUNTER
August 15, 1940: that was my last mission, mine and four others’. Right there, it ended. They all went on. At least I have never seen them again, and were they still here, I surely would have. We cannot go far from where we die. It is too painful.
JOY
But look, isn’t there supposed to be a tunnel of light or something?
GUNTER
(slight, sad humor)
Ah yes, the light.
(beat)
It is very easy to be a bomber pilot, you know? Not the flying, I mean. The bombing. Everything is so far down, so far away. You drop the bombs, you go home… it’s nothing personal.
They cross the street. Gunter finds it painful to be here: after that first look, he does not look at the Burger King again. They walk to the statue of Eros, and around it, slowly.
GUNTER
I dropped them again and again. Nothing personal. Then that last day, a Hurricane fighter shot us down. We crashed just there —
(indicates the spot)
I got out of the plane, I thought, and tried to find my crew. All I could see was the fires, so terrible: everything burning all around me, the people screaming… That was personal, when I was in the midst of it. That was my doing.
(beat)
There was a light. I saw it. But the fires were so much brighter. I got lost among them. When they died down, and I wasn’t lost any more, that light was gone. I have not seen it since.
JOY
How awful!
GUNTER
Oh, it wasn’t so bad. I was confused, the way a lot of us are who don’t go on. I thought I was downed in an enemy city, so I hid in bombed-out buildings, starved a little — Then one night came more bombs. They fell right on top of me, and didn’t kill me. Then I knew.
They cross the street, away from Eros and down toward Regent Street. For once, the splendid buildings and the bustle of London do nothing for Joy.
JOY
And all this time you’ve been here…
GUNTER
While the world just keeps going. You move among the living, and for them, life goes on. But you can change nothing, do nothing really new. Everything is the same… always.
(shrugs)
It’s not so bad. Lots of live people go through their days the same way, changing nothing, doing nothing new… They never even notice.
JOY
Are there a lot of you? I mean, more than just here?
GUNTER
Many. Some have a thing they want to do: they wait till they can do it, and then go. Some love this place too much to leave, and won’t go on. Great ones, some of them.
JOY
When do you see them? Where?
GUNTER
We have places where we meet sometimes. The society of our own kind is a comfort.
(shrugs)
We keep up with the news. Who is here, who has moved on.
JOY
(a little sad)
I guess you must really want to.
GUNTER
Oh, sometimes. But I also think of the war… and I say to myself, “So many things I destroyed, ‘only following orders.'” I would like to make it up. To say, “I am sorry.” But I can never think of something. Or anyone to say it to.
(sad but putting an amiable face on it)
Maybe someday. For the time being, best to leave things the way they are.
They turn the corner at the bottom of Regent Street, pausing there a moment to look down toward Trafalgar Square.
JOY
It’s really so sad, though. George, and Doris… they can’t even touch.
GUNTER
One must learn to be intimate in other ways.
A look between them. Joy glances away, embarrassed. They start walking again toward the Square.
JOY
You say you can only touch dead things, like your clothes. But you go through walls. Why don’t you just go through your clothes, too?
GUNTER
We can choose what to touch, with some practice. To keep something, so that it moves through things with you, takes time to learn. And each new object, you must get used to, first. It takes an hour or so.
(grins)
This is why we need betting shops for our upkeep. I know some who have suggested taking money from cash machines. But one has to stand with one’s arm in the machine for an hour. People notice. And anyway, I would not like to steal.
JOY
(laughs: rueful)
It sounds like hard work. I always thought being a ghost would be easy. You just jump out and say “boo” to people.
GUNTER
Not if you want them to have lunch with you afterwards.
A smile between them. Then Joy looks shocked.
JOY
God, look at the time. I have to go meet Harry.
GUNTER
Perhaps I will see you later, then.
JOY
I guess so —
GUNTER
(off her flustered look)
Joy. What are you going to tell him?
JOY
I don’t know.
She hurries away through Trafalgar Square, plainly troubled:Â no Mary Tyler Moore stuff this time. Gunter watches her go.
INT. HOTEL NEAR COMPUTER SHOW — LATE AFTERNOON
A cross between a seminar and a cocktail party. At the first part, the seminar, it’s being “explained” to the WIVES, as a PowerPoint presentation, what their husbands are doing. Almost all of the Wives are rapt in the presentation. Joy, however, is terminally bored, and looks horrified to find herself the odd woman out. Anyway, she’s still distracted by what’s on her mind at the moment. Harry notices this and looks distressed by her obvious disinterest.
At the cocktail party, most of the SALESGUYS congregate, chatting: the women, off by themselves, do the same. Joy listens to their chat for as long as she can, but her mind is elsewhere. She’s relieved when Harry comes to get her.
HARRY
Dinner?
JOY
Please. I didn’t know the Stepford Wives had an English branch.
[/scrippet]
(to be continued…)
A big convention-center space, full of crazed computer people selling things to each other as fast as they can. An incredible ROARING DIN of voices from salesfolk, attendees, and loud sound systems.
The Erickson stand is one of the largest in the show — a small seating area with big screen, and numerous smaller stands, sales areas for the staff (including Harry) to see buyers and take their orders, a small bar, cardboard cutouts of Robert Erickson, etc etc.
To one side, near one of the cutouts, a TV REPORTER from the London 24-hour news channel, is taping the lead-in for the interview she’s about to do with Erickson. In B.G. of this shot we see Joy go by, craning her neck to see past, looking for Harry, then EXITING SHOT.
TV REPORTER
Three, two, one… By far the best-known face at ACAPS this year is Robert Erickson, self-made billionaire and one of the ten richest men in the United Kingdom. From his humble and unlikely beginnings as an maverick inventor working in a shed in the London suburb of Islington, Erickson has seen the company he founded grow to
TV INTERVIEWER
dominate the markets of three continents. But he’s never lost the personal touch, so it’s no surprise to see him here at ACAPS for the world product launch of Erickson Computers’ hottest new item, the epsCetera Pocket P.A., a WiFi-, 4G- and Web 2.0-friendly “smart” personal assistant device that fans and critics alike have labeled the “BlackBerry Killer”.
The Erickson stand has a sales area — tables, chairs, a soft drink dispenser, surrounded by posters and displays — where the sales staff are talking to retailers and taking orders from them. Harry sits at one table, writing in a looseleaf notebook with one hand, working with one of the abovementioned Pocket P.A.’s otherwise.
POCKET P.A. “VOICE”
Harry, I’ve got a message for you.
Harry TOUCHES AN ICON on the little touchscreen.
POCKET P.A. “VOICE”
Call incoming from Nigel at oh nine thirty.
HARRY
Put him on hold for three minutes. If he can’t hold, call back then.
POCKET P.A. “VOICE”
All right.
JOY
Harry!
He looks up, his expression annoyed. Joy comes rushing up to him, flustered. She puts her carry-all bag down on the table and starts rummaging through it, trying to find her badge for the show: can’t find it.
HARRY
Where’ve you been?
JOY
I’m sorry I’m late! I got lost on the subway.
HARRY
The Underground. But it’s okay. They’ve rescheduled the husband-and-wife seminar. It’s not till four.
JOY
Oh, good!
She stops going through the bag in search of the badge, starts going through her secret pockets instead. Underground tickets, scribbled notes, and Heaven knows what else pile up on Harry’s work surface. He pushes them out of the way of his work.
HARRY
But I went back to the hotel to get some things, and I couldn’t get into the room. You had the key!
JOY
Didn’t they have another one?
HARRY
(one more irritation)
Little family hotels here don’t usually. When you go out, you leave the key with them, okay?
JOY
Okay. Sorry. How’re you doing here?
Joy finds her badge, sits down by Harry to pin it on. Harry PEERS over her shoulder, alert for approaching clients.
HARRY
Like a house afire. Everybody wants our new baby here. I haven’t stopped writing orders since I got in.
(sees someone past her)
And here come some more. Listen, hon, I can’t stop to socialize right now. Got plans for today?
JOY
Yes. Gunter and I are having lunch.
(wants to tell him, doesn’t know how)
Hon, the hotel —
HARRY
I know. I promise I’ll get us out of there as soon as I can.
JOY
No! I don’t want to go. The hotel’s fine.
HARRY
(taken aback)
It is?
JOY
Yes. The people there are nice.
Harry looks at her suspiciously, wondering what this means. As he’s about to ask, his immediate superior in sales, BOYCE, mid-thirties with a too-slick look and feel, walks by. He pauses, a hand on each of their shoulders, friendly, but with a get-a-move-on feel to the interaction.
BOYCE
And you must be Mrs. Collins! I’m just delighted to meet you. I’ll be seeing you at the husband-and-wife function later on, yes? Super. Harry, those people from Electronic Arts are on their way over, and we can sell them about a hundred units on the spot if we have enough people to concentrate on them. So nice to see you, Mrs. Collins —
He’s off. Harry and Joy look after him with expressions of annoyance. Harry gives Joy a hurried smooch.
HARRY
Go on, hon. We’ll talk later. Have a nice lunch with Gunter.
Joy nods, GETS UP and EXITS. As Harry is surrounded by a bunch of other sales people and prospective clients, he looks after her as if hearing what he’s just said.
HARRY
Gunter…
On her way out, Joy STOPS, intrigued, and with many others rubbernecks as the reporter from L!ve TV interviews Robert Erickson. Erickson stands there with his hands in his suit pockets, exuding accessibility and charm. He is upbeat and pleasant, even while rattling off buzzwords.
TV REPORTER
Many of your competitors have claimed that you must be using substandard materials or manufacturing processes to keep your prices so low.
ERICKSON
You mean, so low that we routinely undercut theirs by more than forty percent.
(chuckles)
All we’re doing is using British manufacturing skill and know-how to run a lean, effective organization. With our employee-friendly work structure, we can afford to take lower profits than our competitors, without resorting to ethically questionable practices like mass outsourcing. Erickson produces a world-class product while also creating jobs in the British workplace and plowing the benefits back into the local community.
There’s a brief interruption as a group of POWER-RANGER CLONES in flashy costumes walk by behind Erickson with signs advertising a videogame. He reacts with amusement, turns back to the interviewer.
TV REPORTER
The exact source of that know-how has been a bone of contention for some time, hasn’t it?
ERICKSON
If you mean, would our competitors like us to tell them exactly how we cram five hundred percent more performance into our components than they can, of course they would! The Erickson chipset is the standard for performance and durability all over the world: our components are guaranteed to keep the memory burnt into them forever, or until the silicon and plastic wear out — whichever comes first. That kind of reliability, anyone would want in their hardware! Especially our competition. But they can’t match it. I understand how frustrated that must make them. I was frustrated too, a lot of those late nights in the shed, until I found the secret.
(beat)
Maybe I should rent them the shed.
LAUGHTER from some of the assembled crowd.
TV REPORTER
Is it true that only three senior executives of your company know all the details of the production process?
ERICKSON
Sorry, no. Only one man knows them all: me. The data can only be released to my successor after the courts declare me dead.
(grins)
Pity I’ll miss the sideshow when it kicks off. Sometimes I think it’d be fun to fake my death at least once to get a preview.
More LAUGHTER: the interview continues. Joy, unconvinced by the charm offensive, wanders off to one side and has a last look at Harry. He is with a client, all animation and laughter: he makes his sale. It’s the kind of animation he does not have with her. Thoughtful, Joy EXITS.
[/scrippet] (to be continued…)